The Loom Beneath
The ledgers are failing. Harbors split. Routes drown. The empire is forgetting itself.
The Harbor That Forgot — Two rival dock workers have one night to hold a harbor together with nothing but raw silk and the truth of who actually owns what.
The Keeper of Tides — Before Talar Seve became the woman with the ship of broken banners, she was a widow standing on an imperial dock, deciding whether to steal her dead husband's ship or let the crown keep the lie that killed him.
The Thread That Would Not Burn — Brother Iskar fled the court with a fragment of cloth older than the empire. The shrine-keeper who hides him has been waiting decades for someone to bring proof that the ledgers were never meant to be owned.
Three collapses. Three defiances. The threads that fell before the storm.
For readers who heard the first collection and want to know what the empire built over.
